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Europe's largest low cost airline, Ryanair, will enter the Bosnian market this year by introducing flights to Banja Luka. It comes following protracted talks with the government of the Entity of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The carrier will introduce two weekly services from Charleroi Airport in Belgium, each Monday and Friday, starting October 29, as well as from Memmingen in Germany from October 30, each Tuesday and Saturday. The Prime Minister of the entity, Željka Cvijanović, has said that "several additional destinations will also be launched" by the airline in the coming period. Tickets for the new routes are already available for purchase through the carrier's website.
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Air Serbia considering long haul winter charters

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Air Serbia is looking into the possibility of introducing long haul charter flights with its Airbus A330-200 aircraft this winter season. The carrier is exploring the idea in partnership with the National Association of Travel Agencies of Serbia (YUTA). In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the Association confirmed that initial talks are taking place with the airline but noted that the carrier's initiative is still at an early stage. "Keeping in mind that YUTA is one of Air Serbia's biggest partners in charter travel through our members, Air Serbia suggested a meeting with tour operators where we would discuss possible charters to far-off destinations", YUTA said in a statement.

According to the Association, tour operators are interested in long haul charter flights to Thailand and Cuba during the winter months, as there is sufficient demand for those markets. However, YUTA noted that all sides involved are yet to determine future cooperation models and conduct their final calculations and possible financial risks. "The potential realisation of these charters would be carried out during the winter season", the Association concluded. The Serbian government has inked a number of Air Service Agreements and Memorandums over the past year with countries which could be of interest for potential long haul charter operations including the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka. These agreements set the legal framework for air operations between the two sides.

Air Serbia will be able to operate long haul charters with its A330-200 aircraft, which is used on scheduled services from Belgrade to New York, as the carrier will reduce frequencies on the route from five to three per week starting November 8. The last time long haul charter flights were run out of Belgrade was during the 1980s. They were maintained by JAT Yugoslav Airlines, often by its Air Yugoslavia division. Over the years, the carrier also operated five "round the world" flights. The first, which departed on November 10, 1974 had the routing Belgrade - Beirut - Mumbai - Singapore - Tokyo - Honolulu - Los Angeles - New York - London - Belgrade. Subsequent world flights would include destinations such as New Delhi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kyoto, San Francisco and Buffalo. The tours lasted some twenty days.

That's an amazingly good deal. But it all depends whether people who go on these holidays book their entire trip with tour operators (which I think Serbs are generally inclined to doing). That way tour operators would probably sell these flights all in the package.

You have a point there. I also think they should have thought about this earlier so they were ready to operate these flights this winter which goes to show the New York reduction was not pre-planned in advance.

A330 to AUH could work. I fly often with Etihad on these flights as they suit me better then Air Serbia with the times and the plane is always full. Not sure about Air Serbia's loads.

The A330 to AUH would not work as JU has problems to fill the A319 in months other than June - September. Loads have gone as low as around 30 pax. Last winter the loads were much better than in previous years, but again around 50, 55 pax and above.

EY flights always fill very well, which I guess EY focuses more in filling their ac then sharing the load. Having said that, JU has more seats in its ac and a far inferior product of all ME airlines flying to BEG.

The financial risk for the airline on such flights is generally low as tour operators buy all the seats. Even if the aircraft is half full the airline gets the same money as if the entire flight was sold out. There is much more risk on the actual tour operators.

Last minute decision. They should have lowered the frequencies once they launched their summer timetable, to give more time for the tour operators to prepare the product and enable the people to purchase in advance.Almost all airlines reduce their frequencies to North America during the winter. It was quite optimistic to think they could've maintained the 5 weekly flights.

Very professional to "consider" the use of the aircraft for long haul charters when the IATA winter season aleady started. Usually such decions are made 6+x months before start of a season, including obtaining traffic rights, scheduling, sales, promotion etc.......for Antalya you can sell on short notice but nor for long haul. Must be panic inside ASL headquarters since leasing fees for A330 are tremendous. I think the should have used this aircraft in summer already. There were plenty of destinations where two Aviolet B733 took off within of 15 minutes. Would have been more economical to use one A330 instead.

I think they didn't expect to reduce JFK to three weekly so now they have to find something to do with the aircraft. Maybe launch a one weekly flight to ORD and one weekly to YYZ. Fill those seats with p2p at least.

The aircraft was more than 60% of the time in the air during summer months! Plus 10-15% of the time on tarmac in BEG in JFK. That's a pretty damn good use of an aircraft! There needs to be regular maintenance and inspection.

OTSince F7 as part of European EY Group is switching to Dash 8-400s and AB said to be very content with their Dashes, I reckon it will be likely that JU did not make a decision on renewing their regional fleet as EY will be pressuring them to switch to Dash too. Common acquisition and maintenance will mean lower prices.

stop dreaming!!! yesterday they even cancelled SVO and there was no single JU flight to Moscow while SU operated with 3 flights. Moscow is a strategic destination and they are withdrawing ... does that paint the picture of the state they are in ?

How many times do you have to be told that no flights are cancelled to Moscow? They swapped the Sunday flight to operate on Tuesdays and that's the case for already a month and was preplanned in advanced (visible in GDS since March 2016). You were told this 2 weeks ago, of course ignored it only to come here again to claim the same thing.

Charters are okay for one winter, but what happens when second A330 comes around? Long time ago I mentioned LOT struggles with their 787 winter charters. Better than being in the hangar, but inferior to sending one out of two (or 2 out of 4) to Etihad, similar to Muscat that was operated by JU A319. EY doesn't need it? Package it as an offer they can't refuse, as in: "EY better take one JU A330 for the winter than endanger whole Air Serbia investment". It's simply better solution for the EY family.

It seems like JU is in a panic mode. A second A330 lease would kill the company during winter. Also if they really wanted they could have started 2 p/w flights to YYZ during winter, but no they want to fly half full planes to Phuket for 400 euros per pax. No hater, but I dont get the logic here. YYZ would also be 400 euro maybe, but at least would be a good preparation for the upcoming summer season

Everyone else including Wizz makes money in the summer and burns money in Nov and Feb. LCCs keep LF mostly constant by lowering fares, but that's not practical for long haul flying due to different cost model.

Just about to board SPUFRA OU A319 flight. Weather in Split is gorgeous. Went real quick to Trogir since I got some time left. Still quite some tourists around, mostly Asians but also Janezi, USA, Spain, UK and Germany, AustriaMy guess is that we re apx 80 to 90 pax

'I could just go on and on all day about how much I loved this flight. The soft product was among the best I’ve had in business class. The crew was so attentive and friendly, and took such pride in what they did, which is always a pleasure to watch.

The soft product across the board felt a lot more like first class than business class, thanks to the excellent wine selection, dine on demand menu, pajamas, turndown service, etc.I’d recommend Air Serbia’s New York to Belgrade flight in a heartbeat. Given that Etihad partly owns Air Serbia I had high hopes coming in, but even so was blown away.Well done, Air Serbia!'

..but then again , it's probably pointless since there are so many experts here which unanimously concluded that it's not only ASL is inferior to /insert whatever/ but to 2013.'s JU as well!

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